Slightly worried over these nitrates :(

[cookiedough]

Hi all! I have a brand newly cycled, planted 5G for a single betta who seems extremely healthy and happy with his new tank. There's just one problem so far and that's the nitrate levels I'm getting.

All other levels are perfect but our tap water is high (between 60 and 80) so it's really hard to get that level below 40. I've tried many PWC, I'll do half r/o water and half tap, sometimes I use mostly r/o water but nitrates have never been much below 40. I also have a floating wisteria, and anubias, java, sword plant so hopefully these plants will eventually help bring those nitrates down.

Should I be doing anything else? Does anyone have any other suggestions?
So grateful for any helpful advice!! ))

 

[Laser]

Aside from heavily planting the tank you could check out Seachem's Purigen.

Seachem. Purigen

 

[Mebbid]

Purigen doesn't actively remove nitrate but instead removes compounds that will eventually be converted into nitrate. You could however run some nitrate removing resins that are out on the market atm. They are rechargeable and apparently work very well.


Since you have plants I would just pull the water you are going to use for the water change and run the nitrate chips before adding that to the tank.